


What you can’t ask Captain about

by belana



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2580515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belana/pseuds/belana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is unwise to ask Captain what the Browncoats fought and died for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What you can’t ask Captain about

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Про що не спитаєш у капітана](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/81833) by О. Чигиринская. 



> Special thanks to zmeischa for beta-reading!

It is unwise to ask Captain what the Browncoats fought and died for. I stopped asking a while ago. No, I’m not afraid that he’d break my jaw like he did to those thugs on Callisto, he’s too much a gentleman for that. I’m not afraid that he’d call me a whore, he will call me names anyway even when I asked him many times not to.

I don’t ask because I know the answer.

I didn’t understand at first. I looked at these simple gruffy men that knew only managing the cattle and digging in the mines and wondered. Why do they not see that people live so much better in the Alliance? Don’t they realize that their planetary nabobs are unpleasant and corrupt? Don’t they see that the attempts of their parliaments to rise to the scope of the Senate of the Alliance are ridiculous?

I knew these people, this group of local moguls, they spent money trying to rise above poverty from which they all originally came from. In order to get that money they’d go a long way.

When I got to know Captain better I learned that he was with me on that matter. Then why did he risk his life for people not fit to hold a candle to him?

I didn’t ask. He didn’t tell.

_Serenity_ spun a web of routes between the Rim planets. From Silverhold where the people worked in mines for twelve hours in a row to Parth where children were sold into slavery. From Ezra surreptitiously ruled by a gangster Adelai Niska to Newhall where the owner of the air generators publicly called himself a king. From Canton where people went blind before they turned fifty because of the hydrogen sulphide surplus in the air to Regina where you either drink medicine every hour or cough your lungs out.

On almost every planet the Alliance didn’t replace the local leaders. They have reached an agreement. Or not – for example, Shadow doesn’t have a government. Because there is no one to rule. Most of those who lead the Independents kept their posts, though.  
What did you and your men fight and die for, Captain Reynolds?

_For opportunities that are no longer available_ – that he doesn’t have to say. I know it already.

I know that on Canton the Alliance froze the construction of a metal-ceramic plant. But the previous Canton owner wanted to turn this one plant into a spaceship-building industry. No, let them dig up the clay, the Alliance dockyards don’t need a competition.

I know that Parth could use one single military operation to purge slavery. But the preservation of slavery was the main condition of Persephone before joining the Alliance and betraying the previous allies.

I know that it’s possible to open an independent pharmaceutical manufacturing on Regina, but why? If one can control a population of a whole planet through medicine supplies?

I know that Silverhold can have an eight-hour work day. But then the immigration quotas need to be increased, and a well-populated planet could become self-sufficient.

These petty men spill all their secrets, schemes and deals in my bed. I could have earned a pretty penny if I violated the Companion’s Code and started spying. If I really did become a whore…

I listen and smirk, bestow caresses upon them – and return to _Serenity_ where I’m greeted by a man whom they betrayed.

Captain didn’t bleed for these people. He bled so there was an alternative to the Alliance, the Union of Independent Planets that carved their own way into the future. He fought for a world where the Canton owner could build his ships and sell his ceramics; for the world where the Silverhold board of directors colonized the planet and didn’t depend on import of barest necessities; for the world where Regina had a pharmaceutical factory.

He fought for the world where it was impossible to destroy the biosphere of a whole planet…

And I don’t ask whether his war is over.


End file.
